alan wrote:Jesus Friggin' Christ. At one point the atmosphere contained no oxygen. Can we extrapolate a greater point from that fact? No, because the planet has undergone severe changes throughout it's history. We humans have been polluting for just a tiny fraction of that history. Therefore, and I hope this gets past your conceptual barriers--we need to look at the data from the past one hundred years or so, when industrial society became dominant. Is this a difficult concept?

The human contribution of CO2 is negligible.

CO2 is NOT catastrophic either.

5). Current Global Warming trends are neither catastrophic nor are they unusual given the Earth’s very recent past.

Global Warming Alarmists state that man made CO2 is responsible for what is becoming a catastrophic increase in Global temperatures. (You know the 1 degree increase in the last century).

Science has told us for decades (decades prior to the Global Warming Alarmist taking the stage) that earth’s last ice age (referred to as the “little ice age”) began sometime near the year 1400 and lasted until approximately 1860. This “little ice age” was responsible for disasters like the “Irish Potato Famine”. The end of the “little ice age” was not preceeded by an increase in CO2 levels. Other natural causes were responsible for the “global warming” which followed the end of the “little ice age” and continues to this date. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html , http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/ ... tml#Hockey

During the Middle Ages (1066 – 1485) a time that saw the Norman’s conquest of England, King Richard The Lion Hearted, The Crusades – all 7 of them, the Early Italian Renaissance - a period of time long before the ”Industrial Revolution”, mankind contributed very little to Global CO2 levels. The Middle Ages experienced a period of global warming that exceeds the global warming of today. Yes, temperatures were higher than they are now, significantly higher. http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/ ... tml#Hockey , http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/ ... 63628.html ,

“A review of more than 240 scientific studies has shown that today’s temperatures are neither the “warmest ever” nor are the Temperatures producing extreme conditions “never seen before”. The findings of these 240 studies stand in stark contrast to the claims of the alarmists. The findings prove that the world had a medieval warm period between the ninth and 14th centuries, with world temperatures significantly higher than today’s. They also confirm claims that a little Ice Age began in about 1300, with the world cooling dramatically. Just before the turn of the century, in 1900, the world began to warm up, but as of today, has still to reach the balmy temperatures of the Middle Ages. The end of the little Ice Age is significant because it implies that the records used by climate scientists (THE ALARMISTS) date from when the Earth was relatively cold, thereby exaggerating the significance of today’s temperature rise. According to the researchers, the evidence confirms suspicions that today’s alleged “unprecedented” temperatures are simply the result of examining temperature change over too short a period. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/ ... 63628.html

The Global Warming Alarmists have choosen the “Little Ice Age” to begin their temperature measurements and comparisons. By choosing the coldest period in Earth’s history over the last 10,000 years, the Alarmists are assured of finding data that will show a warming trend. But the warming trend is not unusual when compared to all of Earth’s prior warming trends.

If mankind were to cease all economic production and cease buring all carbon fuels, at best, a 2% reduction in CO2 levels could be had. Additional reductions from manking would need to involve an end to “respiration” – manking would need to stop breathing. Having achieved these miniscule reductions, at fantastic cost and loss of personal freedom, nature could, in the bat of an eye, dramatically reverse any man made reduction. You see, temperature drives the CO2 level, CO2 levels do not drive temperature.

Recent studies call into question wether Global Warming is continuing - the studies refute the wild claims concerning the amount of ”warming” that occurred in the 1990′s. Even the ultra-green “Discovery Channel” has noted studies which indicate “global warming” is on “hold” and may not reappear for decades. That “Global Temperatures have flatlined since 2001″. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29469287/

The Boston Globe has asked, “Where is the Global Warming?”, before noting, “But for many people, the science of climate change is not nearly as important as the religion of climate change. When Al Gore insisted yet again at a conference last Thursday that there can be no debate about global warming, he was speaking not with the authority of a man of science, but with the closed-minded dogmatism of a religious zealot. Dogma and zealotry have their virtues, no doubt. But if we want to understand where global warming has gone, those aren’t the tools we need.” http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/edito ... l_warming/http://mcauleysworld.wordpress.com/2009 ... mandments/

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

If mankind were to cease all economic production and cease buring all carbon fuels, at best, a 2% reduction in CO2 levels could be had. Additional reductions from manking would need to involve an end to “respiration” – manking would need to stop breathing. Having achieved these miniscule reductions, at fantastic cost and loss of personal freedom, nature could, in the bat of an eye, dramatically reverse any man made reduction. You see, temperature drives the CO2 level, CO2 levels do not drive temperature.

The danger in Global Warming beliefs is that they create great economic burden, loss of personal freedom, sending us back hundreds of years back, and all this for nothing.

Don't want to pollute the earth? Don't drive, don't fly airplanes, don't buy food in the supermarket (where the food is delivered by evil polluting trucks)! Use the bicycle in -20C.

Last edited by Alex123 on Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

The sites referenced are right-wing propaganda channels. "mcauleysworld" is a particularly egregious example of ultra-conservative BS propagated upon the feeble minds of the less intellectually capable. Best ignored, as are all the ramblings of climate change deniers everywhere.

alan wrote:The sites referenced are right-wing propaganda channels. "mcauleysworld" is a particularly egregious example of ultra-conservative BS propagated upon the feeble minds of the less intellectually capable. Best ignored, as are all the ramblings of climate change deniers everywhere.

Rebute the facts, not the messenger. So far there was NOT A SINGLE rebutal of significant human contribution to Global warming posted on this thread.

Rebute this chart

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"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

alan wrote:Some people are ignorant. There is nothing I can do about it. I choose to avoid contact with fools.

It cuts down on headaches.

.

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

nathan wrote:I've lived in the north west pacific, on the British Columbia coast for over 25 years. ...

Australia is, relatively speaking a desert, and likely, although Australians would know best, human activities have done little to ameliorate this and likely have only contributed to the overall desertification of the land. ...

As for the nature of global climate overall, ... in the greater context of the planet's geological and climatological history such shifts are almost insignificant. If an understanding of all of this contributes little to a more realistic assessment of the significance of human life in the overall scheme of things on this planet then I'm not surprised, an extremely myopic and short term view of the overall context is completely typical of all organic lifeforms.

Hi, Nathan,I linked to Australia's climate trends because I wrote the piece for Aussies, not because Australia is unusual. Here is parallel information for Canada: http://www.ec.gc.ca/adsc-cmda/default.asp?lang=En&n=77842065-1. I have only glanced at it, but it may give you some food for serious thought.Re your last paragraph: while it's true that the last hundred years are a blink in world history, they are a really important blink to us because the climate in that time has allowed us to flourish. The world's climate for most of the last billion years would not have supported human life, let alone human civilisation, and if we flick the world out of that climate regime, the world may very well cease to support human life. No big deal in the scheme of Eternity, but liable to generate an immense amount of human suffering in the here and now.Kim

Now, in response to Alex's posts ...Thanks, Alan, Tilt and others for already making some of the points I was going to.

Alex, your posts in the few hours I have been away from my computer demonstrate conclusively that you reject all of the last twenty or thirty years of climate science. Are you aware that you are doing so? If not, please read http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm and as many of the pages linked to it as you have time for.If you are aware that you are rejecting the overwhelming consensus of thousands of very hard-working professional climate scientists, perhaps you could tell us why? If you can do so, we have some possibility of establishing a dialogue. If you can't, or won't, you seem very likely to keep on repeating pseudo-science and ignoring the truth. That's not healthy, and it's not dialogue.Over to you Kim

In my opinion, the fanatical belief in man-made global warming and for that matter the whole "save-the-planet" mindset is wrong view and should be abandoned. Attachment to the planet/climate/whatever is just clinging to an impermanent thing.

This is what the Buddha had to say about climate change:

Monks, the highest peak of the Himalayas, is eighty four thousand yojanas high from sea level. Eighty four thousand yojanas in breadth. It is eighty four thousand yojanas deep down in the sea. Monks, after the lapse of many years, many hundreds of thousands of years there comes a time when it does not rain. When it does not rain, all seed and vegetation born plants such as medicinal grass, plants trees and forests dry up and wither and are no more. Monks, thus formations are impermanent not stable, there is nothing to comfort in them, so it is suitable that you should turn away from, get disentangled from and be released from all formations.

…the great ponds maintained by the great rivers such as Anotatta, Sihapapata, Rathakara, Kannamunda, Kunala, Chadanta and Mandakini dry up and wither, they become no more. Monks, thus formations are impermanent not stable, there is nothing to comfort in them, so it is suitable that you should turn away from, get disentangled from and be released from all formations.

…the water in the great ocean recedes one hundred yojanas, two hundred yojanas three hundred yojanas, five hundred yojanas, six hundred yojanas and seven hundred yojanas. The water recedes to the height of seven, six, five, four, three, two palms and even one palm. The water recedes to the height of seven, six, five, four, three, two men, or even one man. It recedes to half the height of a man. It recedes to the knee depth of a man, to the ankle depth of a man. ….there would not be water in the ocean to wet the fingers up to the knots. Monks, thus formations are impermanent not stable, there is nothing to comfort in them, so it is suitable that you should turn away from, get disentangled from and be released from all formations.

from AN 7.66 The Seven Suns

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

poto wrote:In my opinion, the fanatical belief in man-made global warming and for that matter the whole "save-the-planet" mindset is wrong view and should be abandoned. Attachment to the planet/climate/whatever is just clinging to an impermanent thing.

Hi poto,

I do agree with you on the not clinging part, but the way you expressed it makes it sound like one could make a parallel argument that killing someone would be OK since they are eventually going to die anyway.

poto wrote:In my opinion, the fanatical belief in man-made global warming and for that matter the whole "save-the-planet" mindset is wrong view and should be abandoned. Attachment to the planet/climate/whatever is just clinging to an impermanent thing.

Hi poto,

I do agree with you on the not clinging part, but the way you expressed it makes it sound like one could make a parallel argument that killing someone would be OK since they are eventually going to die anyway.

No, that's not what I meant... it's not OK to kill somebody. Also, the implication that CO2 = murder is fallacious logic. I've been trying to avoid these kind of debates, since they always seem to end badly. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.

Anyway, I'm in the skeptical camp. I shoveled about 5 or 6 inches of "global warming" off my driveway today. Pretty normal for winters in these parts. I wouldn't mind a bit of warming about now.

For the eco-warriors among us. I do wonder, with all the time spent saving the planet, how does one have time to free oneself of attachments to said planet?

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

Of course I didn't mean to say that CO2 = murder. I was just taking issue with the logic that because something is impermanent there is no problem with hastening its demise. And of course the phrase "save-the-planet" doesn't mean the actual planet, but rather ecosystems, other life, etc. The planet itself isn't in danger (from us, anyway).

As far as the global warming debate -- I prefer not to participate in religious arguments.

P.S. I just shoveled 9" of snow, and we had 8" last week. May Spring please come soon! But that has nothing to do with the topic. Obviously the places we see the effects are in the transition zones -- permafrost, glaciers, ice caps, ocean currents, etc. A simple example is an ice cube. It melts at the outside edges first, while the inside stays frozen.

poto wrote:Anyway, I'm in the skeptical camp. I shoveled about 5 or 6 inches of "global warming" off my driveway today. Pretty normal for winters in these parts. I wouldn't mind a bit of warming about now.

Hi, Poto, long time no see!The climate is changing astoundingly fast in geological terms but that's still pretty slow in human terms. Most people now alive will notice the effects and some local weather is already showing the effects (but not all in one direction, as I said in my OP - your winters may become colder than before because of changes in the atmosphere's large-scale circulation), but no single event (or even year) is going to be clear evidence for or against such slow changes. I don't know if you did read my OP; if not, please do, so that you can comment meaningfully on it.

poto wrote:For the eco-warriors among us. I do wonder, with all the time spent saving the planet, how does one have time to free oneself of attachments to said planet?

Kim O'Hara wrote:Hi, Nathan,I linked to Australia's climate trends because I wrote the piece for Aussies, not because Australia is unusual. Here is parallel information for Canada: http://www.ec.gc.ca/adsc-cmda/default.asp?lang=En&n=77842065-1. I have only glanced at it, but it may give you some food for serious thought.Re your last paragraph: while it's true that the last hundred years are a blink in world history, they are a really important blink to us because the climate in that time has allowed us to flourish. The world's climate for most of the last billion years would not have supported human life, let alone human civilisation, and if we flick the world out of that climate regime, the world may very well cease to support human life. No big deal in the scheme of Eternity, but liable to generate an immense amount of human suffering in the here and now.Kim

I get that, looking at climate and ground cover maps to the north, east and south of this coast it all looks increasingly like the worlds largest expanding desert. I get it too that despite a handful of individuals and corporations profiting mightily from the widespread exploitation of the planet over the last century it is now undoubtedly up to no one other than the working poor to pay for any and all alleged attempts to do anything about any of it.

The last time I posted here to a thread on this theme about two years ago I said that the whole point of this exercise was to help us to accept paying twice as much for half as much groceries. Two years later, unsurprisingly, I'm paying twice as much for half as much groceries. At the same time the oil companies currently strip mining half of Alberta to supply cheap oil to America and China continue to log record profits and while entire nations sink irretrievably ever further into debt their bankers and brokers reward themselves for the various mismanagement strategies with unprecedented bailouts and bonuses.

I can see what is happening to the planet and its peoples. I fully expect all of it to continue to slowly get worse and I continue to expect those who profit from this to remain unaccountable while those in no position to effect changes will be called on to make whatever adjustments or reparations are necessary and those who are elected to represent the citizenry refuse to do so and instead continue to consort and conspire with the untouchable criminals who own everything that remains of any real or imagined value.

poto wrote:In my opinion, the fanatical belief in man-made global warming and for that matter the whole "save-the-planet" mindset is wrong view and should be abandoned.

I also think you've gotten a mistaken impression of what the attitude is. If people see what they regard as a big danger, and they react by treating it as important to avoid that danger, wait to describe it as "fanatical" until after you've figured out whether they are assessing the risk in a reasonable way or not. One of the key ways that people have tried to manipulate this issue is by playing on our prejudices about what counts as a "reasonable" reaction to the issue. I consider this particular concern valid, and I would appreciate your ceasing to portray people like me as being possessed of "fanatical" beliefs.

It's happened many times in the past, that people have inadvertently caused harm by using materials not knowing what their effects are. Lead, for example, used to be used in gasoline, until it was shown to cause children learning problems even in small doses. The compassionate attitude in such circumstances is to treat the risk to others as being far more important than the possible loss in octane rating for the gas in my car. I suspect one could make a very good case for the claim that manufacturers greedily put their own profits ahead of safety, but I think there's a big pitfall in trying to make the issue be one of "greedy businessmen". Whatever their attitude may be, the key thing for us is to reduce the harm done.

When I drive now, I get to weigh the benefits to me in driving against the probable harms to others (who in this case tend to be mostly poor people in third world countries that are relatively ill-equipped to deal with the climate crisis). The British government commissioned a study that gave a range of estimates for the economic value of the harm done by releasing a gigaton of CO2 into the atmosphere. Based on that I calculated that their mid-range figure is $3.50 U.S. per gallon of gasoline. (A gallon is close to 3.79 liters.) So I try to keep that in mind as I decide how much driving to do. Since then, further evidence has come out that such estimates have been too low. Lots of people have made estimates which ignored the fact that if the arctic ice should melt, the water will reflect less light back than the ice has been doing, for example. So their upper estimate, which works out to about $7.00 per gallon, may turn out to be closer to correct.

The person who has made good progress toward uprooting their own greed will not have the same troubles with this kind of decision as the rest of us have. Such people find living in an economical and not burdensome way comes naturally, and probably tend to have had a relatively small "carbon footprint" even before we had any reason to be concerned. I don't know of anybody who is unattached to material possessions but attached to the state of the environment, but many people are highly attached to material possessions but reckless about the environment.

Alex123 wrote:The human contribution of CO2 is negligible.

Please don't just believe what these people tell you. The Koch brothers have spent amazing sums of money attempting to make ignoring science seem like the safe option, promoting a brand of essentially crackpot climate denial literature that would otherwise have no chance of winning over public opinion.

The pre-industrial level of CO2 is thought to have been about 280 parts per million. Now it's about 390 parts per million. We also have good evidence that it's there because we put it there. We know about how much forest has been cleared. We can see that the isotopic composition of the CO2 in the atmosphere has been changed (fossil fuels have a different composition than the atmosphere does). We put gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. It's clearly our doing.

The idea that this can safely be ignored is just incorrect.

Alex123 wrote:

5). Current Global Warming trends are neither catastrophic nor are they unusual given the Earth’s very recent past.

Global Warming Alarmists state that man made CO2 is responsible for what is becoming a catastrophic increase in Global temperatures. (You know the 1 degree increase in the last century).

People often underestimate how serious changes of a few degrees are. Please read some of the literature written by responsible scientists about the effects that go with such a change. The propagandists like to pooh-pooh it as a triviality but it's not.

Science has told us for decades (decades prior to the Global Warming Alarmist taking the stage) that earth’s last ice age (referred to as the “little ice age”) began sometime near the year 1400 and lasted until approximately 1860. This “little ice age” was responsible for disasters like the “Irish Potato Famine”. The end of the “little ice age” was not preceeded by an increase in CO2 levels. Other natural causes were responsible for the “global warming” which followed the end of the “little ice age” and continues to this date. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html , http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/ ... tml#Hockey

During the Middle Ages (1066 – 1485) a time that saw the Norman’s conquest of England, King Richard The Lion Hearted, The Crusades – all 7 of them, the Early Italian Renaissance - a period of time long before the ”Industrial Revolution”, mankind contributed very little to Global CO2 levels. The Middle Ages experienced a period of global warming that exceeds the global warming of today. Yes, temperatures were higher than they are now, significantly higher. http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/ ... tml#Hockey , http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/ ... 63628.html ,

The evidence is that these were European and not global.

“A review of more than 240 scientific studies has shown that today’s temperatures are neither the “warmest ever” nor are the Temperatures producing extreme conditions “never seen before”. The findings of these 240 studies stand in stark contrast to the claims of the alarmists. The findings prove that the world had a medieval warm period between the ninth and 14th centuries, with world temperatures significantly higher than today’s.

I suspect you will find that "warmest ever" and "never seen before" are not quotations from anybody but straw men. All this stuff about previous geological eras and so on is well known but irrelevant.

This idea that the middle ages had a higher global average temperature (and that the little ice age was also a global phenomenon) seem just to be wishful thinking.

These are also not very relevant to the main questions here. In a lot of what you're quoting, there's a kind of unstated argument that runs sort of like this. If there have been big changes that don't have to do with human beings adding CO2 to the atmosphere, then we can reckon that this time too might have nothing to do with us. But this is just sloppy. Even assuming climate varied as described (which seems incorrect) we'd still have a problem.

Climate crisis deniers are fond of talking about global warming as though it were a (possibly) observed phenomenon for which we have then gone looking for an explanation, and stupidly narrowed the focus of our search to only certain explanations and not others. But global warming is a prediction, based on physics, which was then observed to have taken place. Finding other things that may or may not have added to it or subtracted from it gives us little reason for confidence that human activity either has no effect or has only a harmless effect.

There are many processes that are much better known than they used to be, but the denial literature continues much as if science had not progressed since about 1970. Some times have been warmer or cooler because of changes in solar output, but we've been measuring solar output and know that it's not the reason for the recent rapid warming.

The Global Warming Alarmists have choosen the “Little Ice Age” to begin their temperature measurements and comparisons. By choosing the coldest period in Earth’s history over the last 10,000 years, the Alarmists are assured of finding data that will show a warming trend. But the warming trend is not unusual when compared to all of Earth’s prior warming trends.

The people who I see making an arbitrary choice of starting point are the people who claim that we've recently experience a cooling trend (based on a few years of recent data, picking an unusually warm year as their starting point). Climatologists are not arbitrary with their analysis in this way. Where they have data going back further, they use it.

I would paraphrase Prof. Stott's point of view as saying that since there's so much uncertainty, we should throw up our hands and pretend to have no idea what harm we might be causing.

If mankind were to cease all economic production and cease buring all carbon fuels, at best, a 2% reduction in CO2 levels could be had. Additional reductions from manking would need to involve an end to “respiration” – manking would need to stop breathing. Having achieved these miniscule reductions, at fantastic cost and loss of personal freedom, nature could, in the bat of an eye, dramatically reverse any man made reduction. You see, temperature drives the CO2 level, CO2 levels do not drive temperature.

This "2%" seems likely to be confusing changes in the total rate at which CO2 is entering the atmosphere with changes in CO2 levels in the atmosphere. We are very easily making much larger changes in the CO2 level in the atmosphere than 2%. The amounts of CO2 going into and out of the atmosphere are both very large because of balanced natural flows, CO2 being picked up and released by plants or the ocean and so on. But that's largely irrelevant as long as there is nothing causing an imbalance. Were the recent increases in CO2 due mainly to an imbalance in the natural carbon cycle, the CO2 in the atmosphere would have a different isotopic composition than it has, and we'd also be left with the mystery of where the CO2 that we've been releasing disappeared to.

Recent studies call into question wether Global Warming is continuing - the studies refute the wild claims concerning the amount of ”warming” that occurred in the 1990′s. Even the ultra-green “Discovery Channel” has noted studies which indicate “global warming” is on “hold” and may not reappear for decades. That “Global Temperatures have flatlined since 2001″. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29469287/

Look at a graph of the data, and one doesn't have to be a statistician to see that the people trying to claim that global warming has recently come to a stop are straining to reach their preferred conclusion.

It seems likely that many of us American are, by our obstinate refusal to confront the climate crisis, greatly increasing the harm that will come of it. One can read the climate crisis denial literature for a long time without seeing any coherent attempt at explaining why we may safely ignore it, but inaction is what they want from us. It is NOT a morally neutral issue.

It seems likely that many of us American are, by our obstinate refusal to confront the climate crisis, greatly increasing the harm that will come of it. One can read the climate crisis denial literature for a long time without seeing any coherent attempt at explaining why we may safely ignore it, but inaction is what they want from us. It is NOT a morally neutral issue.

Fig Tree

... is a good one to make. Once upon a time - maybe even as recently as ten years ago - it was possible to be reasonably well-informed, reasonably intelligent and a genuine sceptic about the dangers of AGW. That time has passed, and all (virtually all, anyway) the people calling themselves 'sceptics' and presenting themselves as experts are more correctly called 'denialists'. They are telling lies, either because they are paid to do so or (maybe in a few cases) because they can't bear to face the truth.And they are succeeding in so far as they have sustained, among a lot of people who will never really understand science, the myth that there is some doubt about the existence and/or seriousness of the dangers.Sigh.But they are losing. At last.Kim

Kim O'Hara wrote:Alex, your posts in the few hours I have been away from my computer demonstrate conclusively that you reject all of the last twenty or thirty years of climate science.

If you are aware that you are rejecting the overwhelming consensus of thousands of very hard-working professional climate scientists, perhaps you could tell us why?

If we only look at past 100 years of change, then it may seem scary. But lets see a larger picture.

1) According to http://co2now.org/ in 1958 there was ~315 ppm of CO2. 2) On Dec 10,2010 there was 389.69ppm3) Average increase of 389 - 315 = 74ppm over 52 yearsor4) ~ 1.423 ppm per year.

At this rate it will take almost 4,645 YEARS to reach the levels that were during Cambrian period (~7,000 ppm vs 389.69ppm of today).

The life on earth was just fine for 100s of millions of years where CO2 levels remained between 1,000ppm and 7,000 ppm.

Please understand me, I don't find the CO2 numbers scary.

Another point:

What does "ppm" mean? It means parts per million. Currently 389.69 out of 1,000,000 parts of the atmosphere is CO2. A horribly large percentage of 0.00038969% (389.69 / 1,000,000 = 0.00038969%)

If the rate of CO2 increase is the same (~ 1.423 ppm ppm per year), in 1,000 years from now the CO2 will go from 389.69ppm to ((1,000 x 1.423) + 389.69) = ~1812.76ppm

1812.76 is 1812.76/1,000,000 = 0.0018% Not even 1% difference in atmospheric CO2 if CO2 continued to rise at such terribly quick pace.

So when it comes to numbers, you see why CO2 amount doesn't concern me.

As for temperature, today is actually VERY COLD compared to other periods of time lasting 100s of millions of years. We are still here.

Again, certain people keep pushing aside data of far past. Why? Because it shows that MUCH more CO2 was produced and lost before the modern civilization. Those levels of CO2 and global temperature humble current levels. So why be scared?

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."